Mantoloking families outed for holding up beach project

5 families won't sign easements

Jun. 12, 2013

The Bay Avenue house that was washed off its foundation during superstorm Sandy and into the Barnegat Bay at the foot of the Mantoloking Bridge in Mantoloking has now been removed. MANTOLOKING, NJ 5/10/13 / ASBURY PARK PRESS PHOTO BY THOMAS P. COSTELLO

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MANTOLOKING — Teixiera, Walsh, Maltese, Hartzband and Roberts/Gusmer.

These five families put the entire town in jeopardy, Mantoloking officials said Tuesday, by holding out on a needed beach protection project. The five property owners have refused to sign easements to allow access to their land for the project to be built.

“They are affecting everybody else in town,” Mayor George Nebel said. “The other 525 residents in town, all of whom are in danger, want to know who these people are.”

Superstorm Sandy heavily destroyed the borough, flooding most homes and tearing open others. Because of damage from Sandy, 24 homes have had to be demolished.

Since the storm, Mantoloking officials have been considering how to protect their residents from a future storm. They have three ideas. But to move forward with the plans, they need signed easements from 128 property owners to access their private beaches for the dune construction.

To date, five homeowners have not agreed to an easement, said Chris Nelson, a Mantoloking resident who serves as special counsel for the borough.

The Teixiera family of 1067 Ocean Ave., Donna Walsh of 1513 Ocean Ave., the Maltese family of 1071 Ocean Ave., the Roberts/Gusmer family of 1121 Ocean Ave. and the Hartzband family of 1217 Ocean Ave. are the only Mantoloking property owners refusing to sign the easements, Nelson said.

Now the borough will work with the state attorney general’s office to pursue litigation, Nelson said. The six-member Borough Council has already appointed a special counsel to initiate eminent domain proceedings against any oceanfront property owners who failed to provide an easement.

None of the homeowners named attended Tuesday’s meeting and none could be reached for comment.

There were three deadlines for the holdouts to change their minds, and as of June 1, the last deadline, the five had not done so, Nelson said.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “I was really hoping to get them all because I think it makes it easier on the borough and the community. We’ve always addressed the storm as a community. I was hoping we would continue to 100 percent, but sometimes things don’t work out as you want them to.”

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Mantoloking wants to be part of a federal effort to replenish its beaches with about 200 feet of sand and an extensive dune, but knowing the Army Corps of Engineers project won’t come until after the next hurricane season, borough officials are acting now to establish temporary protection.

The borough submitted three plans to the state Department of Environmental Protection and is waiting to hear whether it can get funding for any of the plans, Nelson said.

Mantoloking is considering geo-textile wraps, which are like very large pillows filled with sand and gravel that sit at the center of a dune to bolster it, a wall of interlocking rocks, or a metal sheet pile, Nelson said. Cost estimates are $12 million for the wraps, $20 million for the sheet pile and $40 million for the rocks, he said.

Mantoloking isn’t the only Jersey Shore town to put public pressure on holdouts for protection plans.

In May, Toms River officials said they, too, won’t take no for an answer regarding easements and called out John McDonough, who owns the beach area in front of Ocean Beach I, II and III, for the project stalling. Those sections represent about 25 percent of the nonpublic beach in the township.

Three years ago, Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini posted the names of each holdout on the township website when it wanted to move forward with beach replenishment.

Nelson said there could be different reasons why they won’t sign and referred to them to answer.